


Their Struggle

by littlemisfit5290



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:40:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14079117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemisfit5290/pseuds/littlemisfit5290
Summary: He can’t go cold, he can’t go numb. She’s already done that enough for the both of them and by the look on her face, it’s clearly taken it’s toll.Post-Ep, MS4.





	Their Struggle

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt to wrestle with the last words of the damn train wreck of a finale we were given.

He feels it in the hug they share on the dock. She starts trembling in his arms and when he pulls back, he sees her face has gone disturbingly pale. She’s having trouble catching her breath and his eyes fall to her stomach. She’s pregnant and not breathing and their son was just shot in cold blood by a nicotine addicted bastard, and his blood runs cold but he forces it to stop.

He can’t go cold, he can’t go numb. She’s already done that enough for the both of them and by the look on her face it’s clearly taken it’s toll.

“Scully, c’mon. Breathe. Breathe, honey. I got ya,” he soothes, rubbing her back before pulling back slightly. Her eyes are still too wide, her panting too pronounced. If he doesn’t keep her steady she’ll faint and the last thing he can handle is explaining the horrific components of this night to EMT’s and nurses.  
  
He guides her away. Impersonates a pillar of strength when all he wants is to crumble to dust and be scattered in the sea to join his flesh and blood.  
His hand moves from the small of her back to her belly just briefly enough to counteract his will to jump off the dock, right as sirens start wailing and the squad cars pull up.  
  
They sit huddled in blankets in the back of the ambulance. Watch as the scene is surveyed and body bags are zipped up. Once the divers are sent towards the dock though Mulder swears, throws the blanket off his shoulders.  
Shoving past the EMT’s and the cop taking their statements he walks back towards the warehouse, chokes back a sob and punches through the first wall his fist finds.  
  
Approaching footsteps don’t deter him but a familiar grip on his bicep does. He turns slightly, winded. Sees her standing before him draped in bleached grey wool. Her eyes are wide and watery and the tears he’d blinked back start flowing full force. He’s full on weeping and she crouches beside him on the ground, strokes his hair. All the while she answers the cop’s questions in such a clinical, removed fashion it sends a chill down his spine.  
  
When she’s done giving their statements she helps him into a standing position. He’s hesitant, he makes a move to head back to the dock but she stops him. They’ll be notified. He’s in shock. He needs sleep. Too drained to argue with her they head to where the car is parked. The walk is silent save some crickets and Scully’s keeping a brisk pace, remaining at least two steps ahead of him the entire time.

He pulls the key fob from his back pocket, unlocks the car. Before he can take another step she lets herself in the driver’s side door.  
  
“Scully..”  
  
“Get in the car, Mulder,” she rasps, reaching a hand out to take the keys from him.  
  
He gets in the passenger seat, buckles up and she speeds towards the highway. He holds his tongue when she rolls through a stop sign, instead opting to recline the seat back and stare up through the moonroof at the stars. His eyes get heavy and it doesn’t register that they’re home until she taps his shoulder.  
  
They trudge up the porch steps and she lets them in with her key. He promptly kicks off his shoes, sinks onto the couch while she gingerly slides off her coat. He sees her hand trembling as she hangs it on the coat rack and before he knows it, the quaking spreads to her entire body. She wraps her arms around herself and Mulder hops to his feet, moves to stand behind her.  
  
“Shhh, shh.”  
  
Her breathing is rapid again and he resists the urge to pull her to his chest, hold her as close as possible. His hands go to her shoulders but she steps away, quickly perches on the nearby ottoman.  
  
“Scully..”  
  
“I just need to sit. Just need to sit down. I…I..”  
  
She’s still fighting to take a full fucking breath and he kneels down in front of her. Tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.  
  
“You’re still shaking, Scully.”  
  
“It’s fine. I…it’ll pass.”  
  
“But you-“  
  
“Mulder, I’m fine!”  
  
Shaking his head he reaches for the afghan draped over the back of the easy chair. He moves to drape it over her but she recoils.  
  
“I’m not cold, damn it!“  
  
Scoffing he shoves the blanket into her lap, stands and turns on his heel.  
  
“Could’ve fooled me.”

The words leave his mouth before he even thinks them. Before he considers the implications and how they’ll land.

Balled up cloth is lobbed hard at the back of his head and he lets out a slow breath, pivots to face her.

“Say that to my face.”

  
“Scully,” he pleads. Voice gruff he swallows back a lump in his throat, bows his head while she marches up to him.  
  
“Look at me and say that!”  
  
His eyes are fixed on the carpet, his feet that stagger, shuffle backward when she shoves him hard in the chest.  
  
“Look at me!“

Her voice is scratchy and shrill. It hurts his ears, hurts him to hear her. It all just fucking hurts. But she’s the only one not in the morgue tonight capable of understanding and feeling that hurt. At least he’s praying to her God that she can.

“If my being cold is my stating the facts, seeing the truth in front of me for the absolute hell that it is…”  
  
“Scully…”  
  
“The same truth that we risked our careers for, that we sacrificed for, lost loved ones for. That we became partners for…”

Her voice breaks as he meets her eyes.  
  
“This is part of our truth now, Mulder.”  
  
“I understand, Scully,” he says gruffly. “And I’m sorry. Please, you…you don’t have to-”  
  
“William wanted us to let him go. William was not meant to be. William was an experiment. William was an idea born in a laboratory.”  
  
She’s speaking raggedly, swiping tears away with her hand before her eyes surrender, squeeze shut.  
  
“Scully…”  
  
“I carried him. I bore him, but I….I was never a mother to him.”  
  
Her head bowed, shaking, Mulder moves in closer. Pulls her as tight as he can to his chest.  
  
“He wasn’t meant to be, he was an experiment. He was an idea. He..he wanted us to let him go. He wanted us to let him go,”

She repeats herself. Makes the words her mantra. Her face is pressed into his chest as her tears soak his shirt.

“I need to let go, Mulder. I don’t have a choice. I…I, damn it! I’ve _never_ had a choice!”

Moving out of his hold she grabs a glass paperweight off of the desk.

“I should’ve been the one to shoot Spender,” she spits, throwing the tchotchke against the kitchen counter before reaching for a vase. Smashing the ceramic against the far wall.

“I should’ve made the bastard hurt. I should’ve him suffer. I should’ve stood there to watch him bleed out. I should’ve pushed his corpse off the dock myself.”

“I know,” Mulder says roughly. “Scully, I emptied my clip into him. One third of it for you, one third for William, one third for me. But if you’d been standing there, if…if I knew.”

“ _I_ should’ve known. I…I had every test run when I’d found out. But paternity..”

“You wanted to believe.”

Taking her by the shoulders Mulder gently turns her towards him.

“I did believe! I believed when I put him in your arms that night,” she chokes out, breaking free of his hold for the mantle this time.

She pushes off a row of books and their bookends, whips a Buddha statue into the corner and a candle into the railing before scrambling back for the last object. She has her hand around it and aims to throw until her thumb grazes the filled in crack in the small glass dome.

Breath hitching, she staggers back to sit back down on the couch. Turning the snow globe over in her palm she shakes it gently, watches the flakes and glitter fall on the windmill.

All Mulder can do is shake his head, look down at her pained.

“Scully…”

“He told me when he handed this back to me not to give up on the bigger picture. I…I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t.”

“I think it means,” he says solemnly, sitting beside her as she curls into his side. “That when you’re ready, to try and see beyond the facts, Scully.”

“But they’re right there, Mulder. They’re right there. All staring us in the face.”

“And doing nothing but causing pain and fear and grief. I know. All that darkness is always going to be part of our truth, but the only truth that matters to me right now, in this moment, lies in that bigger picture. I know it’s not as cut and dry and logical as you’d like but it’s simple, Scully. It’s clear.”

“Tell me what you see,” she begs.

“As long as you don’t accuse me of running a seance. I know your stance on those,” Mulder says, earning a flicker of a soft smile.

“What I see is you and I together. We’re safe, we’re temporarily out of work, but have all the more time to put finishing touches on the nursery. We have a girl. We used to have a boy. He was taken from us, taken from us way too soon. But he knew how much we loved him. He told us so.”

“But I questioned it. I asked him how he knew. What kind of mother asks her son that?”

“The kind of mother that’s forced to. The kind that doesn’t have a choice.”

She softly whimpers then and he pulls her onto his lap, strokes her hair.

“You have a choice now though, you understand? If…if you can’t handle this, if it’s too much…forget what I said about the nursery, what I said on the dock. There’s more to me than fatherhood, Scully. There’s you. There’s your health, your happiness, your plans for the rest of your life. If those include a baby, or if they don’t…I understand. I just pray they’ll include me.”

“You didn’t need to light the candle next to mine to ensure that,” she says softly, nuzzling her cheek into his chest.

“I need you, Fox.”

Brushing his lips on the top of her head he swallows hard, holds her tighter.

“I need you too.”

“I do want this for us. I want to believe it’ll happen. But I’m afraid. I’m 54. I can’t let go of another child. But what…what if it happens? What if I can’t stop it?”

“I don’t know, Scully. I…I wish I could guarantee things. I wish it was twenty years ago. I know you said prayers aren’t wishes, but I’ll light a few candles. I’ll light a hundred if I know it’ll do any good.”

“There’s no way of knowing, Mulder. But it couldn’t hurt.”

Slowly she climbs off his lap, ducks into the bathroom as he gets to his feet. Picks the votive off the floor along with the fortunately unbroken Buddha. Going over to the fireplace he throws a log bag in, lights it before scraping up as many tea lights and cupcake candles as he can find.

When she exits the bathroom the lights are off as flames dance and flicker, casting a glow on Mulder’s face as he lies back against the arm of the couch.

“It’s not a hundred, but the fires gotta be at least thirty or forty, right?”

“That seems like a fair estimate, yeah,” she says, wiping her eyes with her sleeve before reaching for the snow globe. She gives it a shake as he shifts over, makes room for her to lie beside him.

“You’re not shaking anymore.”

“Bigger picture,” she murmurs, bringing his hand to her belly after setting the snow globe on his chest. 

“I’m thinking about the bigger picture.”


End file.
